Snakeball Review

Funky disco snake beats!

There are also several weapons to use, some of which take advantage of Sixaxis support for secondary control. For example, one power-up allows you to fire lasers out of the sides of your Hover Snake. Tilting the controller in one direction will concentrate more power on that side and thus lengthen the distance of the beam. This Sixaxis support isn't necessary to use, but it adds another degree of control that you can take advantage of if you wish. We're not saying that the motion implementation is the best -- controlling your Hover Snake while using motion to control your weapon can be somewhat counter-intuitive, but it works nicely on occasion. The option is there for those who want it.

Besides these more palpable elements, Snakeball also revolves around your ability to effectively use your tail as a weapon or shield, depending on the situation. Only the head of your snake can take damage, so if enemy fire is heading your way, you can quickly curl up and deflect the danger with your tail. Or, if another player is headed for the goal with a huge train of balls, you can quickly cut them off and force them to run into your tail, destroying their ship and leaving their balls for the taking.

There are several other neat things you can do in Snakeball worth mentioning. If you need to score a goal quickly, you can actually launch the balls you've collected and try and get them in the goal from afar. Furthermore, certain balls are explosive and begin a countdown once you've eaten them, forcing you to hustle to the goal before your Hover Snake is blown to bits. This is yet another example of how the simplistic foundation of Snakeball is suprisingly deep.

Most of the modes in Snakeball are great fun and offer a wide variety of different challenges, like weaving through mazes or taking on a host of turrets with the weapon of your choice. Playing with three other people locally is a lot of fun, but playing online might be problematic for the time being. As of right now, no one is playing Snakeball, presumably because no one seems to know it's available. We managed to play a few matches with gamers from the UK, but the controls were laggy enough to ruin the experience. This was likely an isolated issue though, considering the geographical location of our opponents. When we played an online match within the office, we had absolutely no problems. The game ran smooth as silk.

Snakeball has a lot of great things going for it, but it's not completely devoid of problems. Several of the specific game types within a particular mode feel similar to each other and almost unnecessary. Beginners may also have a very hard time differentiating between certain items in the midst of all the action because certain enemies look similar to the balls you're supposed to collect and so do the weapon power-ups. And while Snakeball's music is fun and admittedly funky, it can be somewhat repetitive.

Overwhelming tail!

Lastly, there doesn't seem to be any option for voice chat online, and even though you can take a picture of yourself to put on your little Snake rider, the picture isn't saved and must be retaken each time you quit out of the game.

The Verdict

If you're a fan of games that mix a simplistic formula with deep mechanics, Snakeball is the title for you. With impressive gameplay modes, leaderboards and an ultra slick presentation, this one seems worth the mere ten dollar price tag. While not necessarily a perfect experience, Snakeball has great single-player and multiplayer options and is easily one of the better titles the PlayStation Store has to offer.